Wednesday morning, Debbie and I (office mates) looked at one another and forewarned each other that we were in bad moods. “Oh no, that means we’re going to butt heads at some point today…” she said. This may have been the case, but in the 8 months I have been in my role, I’ve learned a lot about Debbie and when to press and when not to. When your office is the size of a small jail cell, you get to know people pretty darn well. And lucky, I really, really, REALLY like Debbie.

The point where the week hit an serious low? When I was prepping for my diabetes cooking class on Wednesday at 1:30pm (class started at 2). As I was unpacking all the shelf-stable groceries I had purchased on Monday, I found my deli sliced corned beneath my plastic forks, spoons, and napkins.

“Debbie, you won’t believe what I did. I didn’t unpack the corned beef and it has been sitting out on the counter since Monday….morning. Will you pretty please run to the store to get another pound of thick-sliced corned beef from the deli?”

“Sure, no problem…I’ll be right there.” she said.

Just a few minutes later, she was there with the corned beef. Saving the day…for the first time.

My class went well and the corned beef and cabbage soup was delicious. Right at 4pm, my class was ending and in walks Debbie.

“Is everything okay?” I asked, surprised to see her (the demo kitchen is across the street from the hospital).

“Yes, I came to help you clean up so you could make it to your boot camp class at 4:30.” she said.

I just shook my head and said, “What did I do to deserve you?”

She blushed a little and I brought her flowers the next day. Carnations, her favorite 🙂

If you remember to turn on your crock pot (lord knows I’ve made that mistake, too!), you’re guaranteed a delicious taco meal with this one. This taco meat is great on salads, in casseroles, in quesadillas, on sandwiches…you name it. Enjoy!

In a large bowl or measuring cup pour the chicken broth in, and use a fork to whisk in the taco seasoning mixture.

Spray the slow cooker with non-stick cooking spray. Open the diced tomato can and pour all contents over the bottom of the slow cooker. Lay the chicken breasts on top of the tomatoes and pour the broth, seasoning, and adobo peppers and sauce over that. Cover and cook on low for 6-10 hours. The chicken should fork apart easily in the crock pot. Serve.

Result: This taco meat is moist, spicy, and packed with adobo flavor. If you don’t care for adobo or spicy, cut back or omit the chipotles in adobo. I appreciate that the chicken can cook for long periods of time, but I do think 6-7 is the best length of time for chicken in the crock pot. Mr. Prevention always enjoys chicken tacos and this one is a repeater in our kitchen fairly often. 🙂

Comments

How nice of Debbie!!! I’ve definitely done that before, but the opposite. I once put string cheese in the freezer with my frozen veg, forgetting to take them out of the bag. I thought they’d be ruined, but they thawed just fine.
You’re lucky you have an amazing co-worker!! That makes such a difference in quality of work life.

Enjoy your weekend Nicole. P.S I had a ROUGH week too, but I had an intern to do my dirty work most of the time. MUAHAHA

Oh man, there’s nothing worse than finding something that was supposed to be refrigerated days after the fact. That happened when something rolled out of our bag in the trunk and a week later I got in the Mr’s car and it stunk like h*ll. I looked in the trunk and we found whatever it was. (It was a few years ago so the item didn’t get stored in the memory bank)

Hi Barb – it does seem a little low. The seasoning recipe makes about 2 to 2 1/2 “packets” of seasoning and the chicken, if natural, shouldn’t have added salt. Because you cook the chicken in the broth with the seasoning, not much of the salt is absorbed. It’s a rough guesstimate, but I don’t think it’s too off base. 🙂